As computers have become more important in today's society, many organizations use computerized accounts payable systems for increased efficiency and decreased cost. However, for large organizations, existing accounts payable systems have provided minimal business intelligence regarding expenditures on an organization-wide basis. Thus, it is difficult for a large organization to track how much it spends with a particular vendor or for particular classes of goods and services. The problem is magnified when the organization is multinational as different currencies may be used for payment and different accounts payable software may be used. Large organizations often try to decrease the cost of goods and services they purchase, but often lack the business intelligence regarding global expenditures by the organization that may be helpful in large scale cost cutting programs.
In addition, while accounts payable systems may provide some information about particular vendors, information about related vendors is minimal. More specifically, existing accounts payable systems typically lack flexible tools for organizing the vendors from whom items are purchased. Where multiple vendors are related to one another, existing systems do not provide the flexibility to view expenditures for multiple vendors grouped together.